What has happened to my Word toolbar? How do I get it back?

1. Easy Answer

Get to know your copy of Word!

It gives you a lot of flexibility about how the interface looks, so someone has probably just turned off the toolbar. Look at the
Toolbars submenu of the
View menu. It should look something like the picture shown on the right:

Then just click on the the name of the toolbar you want. Easy.

2. Advanced Answer

So, what to do if the toolbar you've lost somehow is not on the list of toolbars?...

This is the situation I was facing and is the real reason this page was created. (I couldn't find any advice on this eventuality).
I tried reinstalling Office, repairing Office, upgrading from 2000 to XP, downgrading to 97, even reinstalling Windows and
digging up Office up at the roots with regedit and burning it. Still no standard toolbar was to be seen :(

If it has been disabled as well as hidden, Word doesn't list it.
So, the answer is either to
reenable it from VBA code. I found this out when improving a tool I've created to
facilitate access to these objects, MS Word Template Debugger.
This piece of freeware allows you to do this from a GUI.